Weighted anchors are frequently employed by fishermen, boaters and others to maintain positioning of floating marker buoys used to mark underwater objects or selected locations on the surface of a body of water. Similar sized weighted anchors are also often employed by waterfowl hunters to tether their floating decoys at selected locations on the water surface.
Marker buoy anchors can be used to mark fishing areas, navigation routes, and underwater points of interest. Marker buoys in general use often consist of a floatation unit connected to one end of an anchor line, with the other end of the anchor line tied to a weighted anchor. In use, the marker buoy and the anchor are tossed or placed onto the water surface, and the anchor line pays out as the anchor descends to the bottom of the water body.
The anchors of currently available marker units are typically of a homogeneous material with high specific gravity such as lead or steel. Steel anchors are often U-shaped to allow them to be conveniently placed over the wound line on the anchor line spool of the floatation unit for compact and tangle-free storage. Lead anchors have a slightly higher specific gravity than steel, but their primary advantage over steel is their malleable quality. When shaped as a rectangular strip, these anchors can be manually bent and formed around the anchor line spool or other part of a marker buoy for neat and secure storage. They stay in place on the floatation unit and prevent the anchor line from unwinding or getting tangled. To be disengaged from the floatation unit for use, they are easily unbent to free them.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,443,203 issued to Maertens on Apr. 17, 1984; U.S. Pat. No. 4,501,563 issued to Johnson et al. on Feb. 26, 1985; U.S. Pat. No. 4,544,364 issued to Bankston on Oct. 1, 1985; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,188,551 issued to Keller on Feb. 23, 1993, all disclose examples of anchors composed of bendable lead so that they can be formed around the marker body for storage when not in use. They all have one major disadvantage. Lead is a serious pollutant. Lead shot used in shotgun loads is being replaced by shot made of steel, bismuth, and other materials. Lead bullets sometimes fragment and cause problems when ingested by birds and animals. In recent years, efforts have begun to replace lead fishing sinkers with steel sinkers. When a marker buoy is in use, the anchor line can be accidentally severed, severed from abrasion, or severed after deterioration over time. When this occurs, the anchor is likely to be abandoned on the bottom of the water body constituting a pollutant. If the marker buoy with its lead anchor eventually ends up in a landfill, the lead can be a pollutant there also.
Steel, while considered much less of a pollutant, is less frequently used as an anchor material, because it doesn't have the malleability to be easily bent around the marker buoy to clamp onto the marker buoy to prevent tangling of the anchor line when it is not being used.
Decoy anchors are used by waterfowl hunters to keep their floating decoys at the selected locations and in the pattern of which they were positioned on the water surface. Floating waterfowl anchors usually have a length of cord attached to their keel at one end, and an anchor attached at the other end. When not being used, these decoys are typically stored with the anchor cord wound around the decoy or its keel, and with the anchor secured to some portion of the decoy or its keel. Often the anchor is a thin lead strip that can be bent around the neck or keel of the decoy to hold it in place for storage. But the repeated bending and unbending can cause the lead anchor to break. Lead anchors also have the disadvantage of being a serious pollutant. With the large number of decoys employed by many hunters and frequent broken anchor lines, many of these lead anchors may not be recovered from the bottom of the water body.
To use the decoy, the anchor is disengaged from the decoy body, and the anchor and decoy are tossed or placed onto the water surface. The anchor, which is attached to the decoy by a fixed length of decoy cord, sinks to the bottom, thus preventing the decoy from drifting very far from its initial position on the water surface. A small amount of slack is usually provided in the decoy cord to allow the decoy to move in a life-like manner.
Decoy anchors are generally made of high specific gravity materials such as lead or steel. An essential feature of decoy anchors is that they must function in combination with their attached decoys to be tangle-free while in use, while in transport, and while in storage.
Decoy anchors are often used and stored in large quantities, and tangling of the anchors and cords is a particularly annoying and bothersome problem. Decoys are often set out or retrieved in the dark, and sometimes during cold weather. These adverse conditions tend to exacerbate the difficulty if cords and anchors get intertwined or tangled. Another problem occurs with loose fitting anchors or with anchors that become separated from their attachment point on the decoy. These loose anchors can strike the decoys and damage their finishes.
Over many years, waterfowl hunters and other practitioners have devised and revised various methods and decoy/anchor arrangements to minimize the potential for tangling. Most of these methods involve winding the anchor cord around the body or keel of the decoy, and then securing the anchor to some part of the decoy. Some designs include reels to deploy and retrieve the anchor cord. Malleable lead shapes have very often been used for decoy anchors, because thin lead can be bent and formed around the neck, bill, or keel of the decoy when not in use. When steel anchors have been used, they have often been configured to fit over the neck of the decoy, or they may be secured by an elastic band or other means to the keel of the decoy.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,461,816 issued to Gazalski on Oct. 31, 1995; U.S. Pat. No. 5,899,014 issued to Bornhoft et al. on May 4, 1999; U.S. Pat. No. 6,543,176 issued to McGhghy on Apr. 8, 2003; and U.S. Pat. No. 6,857,216 issued to Merin on Feb. 22, 2005, all disclose anchors designed to prevent anchor line tangling when used for waterfowl decoys.
The Gazalski anchor is plastic and filed with shot, sand, water and sand or other materials. The anchor slides onto the keel of the decoy for storage, but the keel must be shaped and adapted uniquely to receive and grip this anchor. The decoy keel and the anchor must be designed to fit in combination. Thus, this anchor would not likely fit or be properly secured with most existing decoys.
The Bornhoft et al. anchor has a clasp of deformable resilient material to grip the anchor cord after the cord is wound onto to decoy for storage. The clasp must be manually manipulated to slip onto the cord and is subject to slippage and degradation over time and use.
The McGhghy anchor has a bail, and the anchor cord is wrapped around this bail for storage. The bail end of the anchor attaches to one end of the decoy keel, and there is a stretchable band used to attach the other end of the anchor to the other end of the decoy keel. The keel of the decoy must have a notch at both ends, one notch for the bail and the other for the stretchable band. The stretchable band is a separate article that can easily become lost, and it can deteriorate with time and use. This anchor must also be matched with a particular keel configuration having the two notches to function properly. Thus, the anchor and keel must be designed in combination to fit properly. Also, having to wind the anchor cord around the bail, and using the separate stretchable band for each decoy would be somewhat time consuming if one were using a large number of decoys.
The Merin anchor cord is wrapped around the decoy keel. It has a stretchable latex tube to facilitate securing the anchor to the decoy. During storage the ball shaped anchor fits in a slot between the decoy and its keel at the rearward end of the decoy/keel. Again, the design of the decoy/keel interconnection must be configured to fit this specific ball-shaped anchor.